Now that the Nutanix cluster is added to the HYCU software, we need to add the backup target to which the files will be sent.

Adding a SMB backup target

To add a backup target on HYCU, go to the left side menu and click on “Target”:

Then click on “Add” at the top right to launch the target addition wizard:

Then, select the type of target you want to add on HYCU, then click “Continue”. In my case, I kept it simple with an SMB share on the Synology but you are spoiled for choice (NFS, SMB, Nutanix Objects, iSCSI, S3 storage…):

Then enter a name, a description if you wish, and the number of simultaneous backups then click on “Next”. In my case, I limited myself to 2:

Then provide the account information to access the SMB share that will be used as a target. In my case, I need to provide the username, password, server IP address, and shared folder name:

Once the information is correctly entered, click on “Save”. Your backup target now appears in the list of targets, ready to receive backups:

Backup target configuration is complete, my HYCU controller is ready to backup my data.

After deploying the HYCU controller and initializing it, you need to add your Nutanix cluster as a source of virtual machines to backup.

To add a Nutanix cluster on HYCU, you need to provide an account with “Cluster Admin” rights on Nutanix. If you want to do things properly, you should create a service account that is dedicated to this use rather than using the “admin” account of the Nutanix cluster.

I will show you how to create the service account on Prism Element.

Creating the service account on Prism Element

The first step is to connect to the Prism Element of your Nutanix cluster and go to “Setting > Local User Management” and click on “New User”:

Fill in the fields with the desired information and click “Save”:

It is imperative that the “Cluster Admin” and “Backup Admin” boxes are checked! The user is now created, you must now return to HYCU to continue adding the Nutanix cluster:

Creating the service account on Prism Central

The second step is optional and is only necessary if your cluster is registered on a Prism Central. Log in to the Prism Central of your Nutanix cluster, then go to “Admin Center > IAM > Identities” and click on “+ Add Local User”. Fill in the fields with the desired information and click on “Save”:

The user is now created on Prism Central, you now need to assign the correct access rights:

Go to “Admin Center > IAM > Authorization Policies”. Click on “Create Authorization Policy”:

On the page that appears, start by renaming the policy and select “Cluster Admin” in the field provided for this purpose (type “cluster” to do a search) then click on “Next” at the bottom right:

Leave the default selection and click “Next” at the bottom right of the page:

Add your previously created user to the policy and click “Save” at the bottom right of the page:

The user is now created on Prism Central and Prism Element, you must now return to HYCU to continue adding the Nutanix cluster:

Adding the Nutanix cluster on HYCU

In the “Settings” menu, click on “Sources” to open the menu for adding a backup source:

Then click on “New” to start the cluster adding process:

In the window that appears, enter the URL of your Prism Element, the username and password of the HYCU account previously created and click “Next”:

Then enter the URL of your Prism Central, the username and password of the account previously created and click on “Next”:

If you have completed all of the previous steps correctly, you should see a message like “Validation successful”:

Your Nutanix cluster is now added to your HYCU backup solution and appears in the list of sources:

In the previous blog post, I created and started the HYCU virtual machine. Now let’s move on to the initial configuration of the Backup Controller.

Initializing the HYCU backup system

To start the initialization of the HYCU backup controller, you need to connect to the virtual machine via the Nutanix console. Connect to your Prism Element interface, go to “VM”, right-click on the virtual machine you just deployed and click on “Launch Console”:

A new window will open and you should see the initialization startup window. Select “HYCU Backup Controller” from the list and validate:

On the next screen, you must now enter all the network configurations, namely:

• Host name of the virtual machine
• Its IPv4 address
• The associated subnet mask
• The default gateway
• The DNS server
• Possibly, the domain

Once all the information is entered, validate to launch the initialization of the backup controller:

A little less than 10 minutes later, the initialization will be complete and you will be able to access the solution’s web administration console at the address https://HYCU-IP-ADDRESS:8443:

The default login and password are: “admin” for the login and “admin” for the password, to be changed quickly for obvious security reasons:

You are now connected to the HYCU web interface, we can now move on to the basic configuration:

Basic configuration of my HYCU controller

After finishing deploying the solution, there are some basic configurations to be done to make our system fully operational. I detail some steps here, others not because the article is adapted to a use in lab mode!

Changing the password

We will start by changing the default password of the admin account which is currently “admin”. To do this, go to the top right of the interface, click on the connected username “admin” and in the menu that appears, click on “Change Password”:

Enter the old password, the new password twice and validate:

Checking the license level

Before continuing, let’s check the license level of our installation. To do this, click on the gear at the top right of the window to display the drop-down menu, then click on “Licensing”:

If everything is OK, you should now have a valid “Free license” type license:

Bandwidth Throttling Configuration

Working from home most of the time, I planned to schedule my backup slots between 8pm and 7am. But since I’m also a gamer, there’s no way I’m going to crush my network bandwidth during my sessions… So I set up a bandwidth limitation. In the settings (cogwheel), in “Networks > Throttling”:

Then, in “Throttling Windows”, I was able to enter a limitation range named “Gaming Hours” which extends from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m.:

And then I added a throughput speed limitation to 1MiBps:

Additional configurations

Among the additional configurations that can be done but that I will not detail here because it is not in place in my lab, there is in particular the AD authentication part:

And the email notifications part:

Today, I will present you the method of deploying the HYCU backup solution on my Nutanix AHV cluster.

In the previous article, I presented you the prerequisites necessary for installing the solution, including sending the HYCU installation files to the Nutanix AHV cluster. At this stage, you should therefore have the desired version of HYCU available on your cluster:

In my case, I have deliberately placed 3 different versions of the software in order to be able to show:

• the deployment of the solution
• the upgrade with upgrade path

Sizing

Before proceeding with the installation, it must first be sized according to our needs. For this, HYCU gives indications on VM sizes depending on the quantity of virtual machines to be backed up:

In my case, having less than 50 virtual machines to backup, I will go for the smallest size:

• 8 vCPU
• 8Gb RAM
• 32Gb storage

Now that my VM is sized, let’s move on to its deployment.

Deploying the HYCU controller

To deploy the HYCU VM, you need to connect to the Prism Element, go to the “VM” menu and click on “Create VM”. In the window that appears, I give it a name and move on:

I enter the values ​​retained during dimensioning in the “Compute Details” section:

And then I add the first disk of type “DISK” as “Clone from Image Service” and select the image I previously loaded on my cluster “hycu-4.9.0-5310”:

I then add a second disk of type “DISK” this time, in “Allocate on Storage Container” since it is a blank disk of 32Gb that I place on the default storage container:

Finally, I assign a network card to my virtual machine on the subnet of my choice:

My virtual machine is now deployed, I can start it:

My next blog post will detail the initial configuration of the HYCU virtual machine which will allow to finalize the system initialization and access the solution administration interface.

In my previous article, I introduced you to the HYCU backup solution. I will now describe my deployment environment and explain how to retrieve the solution’s installation sources.

Deployment environment

My deployment environment is as follows:

• Nutanix CE2.1 cluster to deploy and as a source for backups
• Synology NAS as a destination for backups

This is enough to test the solution and simulate a real production environment.

I have already set up a share on the Synology NAS to receive the backups and I have made sure that the Nutanix cluster, the HYCU VM and the Synology NAS could communicate without any problem.

I will see later if I can simulate an additional S3 type location to simulate an externalization of data in “Archiving” mode.

Let’s now move on to recovering the files needed for the installation.

Solution Compatibility

In terms of compatibility, here are the main elements to keep in mind on the scope that interests us:

• Nutanix AOS 6.5, 6.8 and 6.10
• Nutanix Files 4.4 and 5.0
• Nutanix Objects, Amazon S3, Wasabi
• VM Windows Server 2016, 2019, 2022
• Linux

I invite you to consult the compatibility matrix available on the HYCU Support site to learn about all the HYCU compatible platforms: https://download.hycu.com/ec/v5.1.0/help/en/HYCU_CompatibilityMatrix.pdf

Retrieving installation images

To retrieve the images, you must go to the publisher’s website and request a trial license: https://www.hycu.com/solutions/data-protection/nutanix#getForm

There are a few fields to fill in, a person from HYCU will then contact you by phone (so provide a number on which you can be reached!) to ask you what your motivations are.

Once all the prerequisites are filled in, HYCU will provide you with a download link that will allow you to retrieve the software installation image in qcow2 format, ready to be imported into your Nutanix cluster.

Transferring images to the Nutanix cluster

Once you have downloaded the qcow2 image from HYCU, you now need to transfer it to your Nutanix cluster.

To do this, connect to the Prism Element of your Nutanix CE cluster and go to “Settings > Image Configuration”:

Click on “Upload image”, fill in the form and select the previously uploaded image:

As this will be a prerequisite for future operations on your HYCU, I invite you to get into good habits right away and name your image according to the HYCU-VERSION-BUILD model.

Click on “Save” to start the transfer and wait until your image is processed by the cluster and is indicated as “ACTIVE”.

HYCU official documentation

For the official documentation from the publisher, it is freely available on the HYCU website in PDF format: https://support.hycu.com/hc/en-us/categories/15363454825500-Documentation

No translation other than English, so you’ll have to learn the language of Shakespeare!

There you have it, you now have everything you need to deploy the HYCU controller on your cluster, see you in a future article to find out how to deploy the controller.

In a world where data management is a major issue, companies are looking for efficient, simple and powerful backup and disaster recovery solutions. HYCU stands out as a backup solution specifically designed for hyperconverged environments, particularly Nutanix.

This article is the first of a complete guide on the HYCU backup solution, a guide that you can find with the other guides here: https://juliendumur.fr/en/guides/

Native integration with Nutanix

HYCU is the first backup solution developed exclusively for Nutanix. Unlike traditional solutions tailored to hyperconverged infrastructures, HYCU is designed to fully leverage the Nutanix ecosystem. It integrates directly with Nutanix AHV and Nutanix Files, ensuring optimal data protection without impacting system performance.

With its API-first integration, HYCU is able to align seamlessly with the Nutanix architecture. This allows IT administrators to manage backups and restores from the Nutanix Prism interface, providing centralized and intuitive management. This approach reduces the learning curve and limits operational efforts.

Key Features of HYCU for Nutanix

Unlike traditional solutions that require installing agents on each virtual machine, HYCU is based on an agentless approach, reducing resource consumption and simplifying maintenance. It is able to automatically detect workloads and adapt backup policies based on the defined configurations. This automation minimizes human intervention and reduces the risk of error.

One of HYCU’s strengths is its ability to perform granular (individual files, specific databases) or complete (entire virtual machines) restores in just a few clicks, ensuring rapid recovery in the event of a failure.

HYCU also integrates advanced data compression and deduplication technologies, reducing storage consumption and improving overall backup performance. Native integration of WORM locking also improves the immutability and security of backed up data.

However, HYCU is not limited to on-premises Nutanix infrastructures. It supports hybrid and multi-cloud environments, allowing companies to protect their data on AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. It is also capable of backing up VMWare ESXi environments or SaaS applications.

Unlike complex solutions requiring advanced configurations, HYCU offers a “plug-and-play” approach where setup and operation are accessible even to IT teams not specialized in backup. The intuitive user interface allows administrators to manage the entire backup and restore lifecycle in just a few clicks.

Use cases and benefits

Companies using HYCU for Nutanix benefit from optimized data protection without compromising the performance of their infrastructure. Key benefits include:

• Reduced operational costs through simplified management and reduced storage requirements.
• Significant time savings through automated and rapid restores.
• Improved business continuity with rapid disaster recovery.
• Regulatory-compliant protection through encryption and data retention features.

HYCU combined with Nutanix environments is a modern and innovative backup solution that is perfectly aligned with the principles of hyperconvergence. In the next article, I will present the different prerequisites necessary for deploying the solution.